Thales' view that all ofnature is based on the existence of asingle ultimate substance, which hetheorized to bewater, was widely influential among the philosophers of his time. Thales thought the Earth floated on water.
In mathematics, Thales is the namesake ofThales's theorem, and theintercept theorem can also be known as Thales's theorem. Thales was said to have calculated the heights of thepyramids and the distance of ships from the shore. In science, Thales was an astronomer who reportedlypredicted the weather and asolar eclipse. The discovery of the position of the constellationUrsa Major is also attributed to Thales, as well as the timings of thesolstices andequinoxes. He was also anengineer, known for having diverted theHalys River.[2]Plutarch wrote that "at that time, Thales alone had raised philosophy from mere practice to speculation."[3]
The main source concerning the details of Thales's life and career is thedoxographerDiogenes Laërtius, in his third-century-AD workLives and Opinions of the Eminent Philosophers.[4] While it is all we have, Diogenes wrote some eight centuries after Thales's death and his sources often contained "unreliable or even fabricated information".[5][a] It is known Thales was fromMiletus, a mercantile city settled at the mouth of theMaeander river, near modernDidim, Turkey.
The dates of Thales's life are not exactly known, but are roughly established by a few datable events mentioned in the sources. According to the historianHerodotus, writing in the 5th century BC, Thales predicted asolar eclipse in 585 BC.[7] Assuming one'sacme (orfloruit) occurred at the age of 40, the chronicle ofApollodorus of Athens, written during the 2nd century BC, therefore placed Thales's birth about the year 625 BC.[8][9]
Ancestry and family
Map of Phoenician (in yellow) and Greek colonies (in red) between the 8th and 6th centuries BC
While the probability is that Thales was as Greek as most Milesians,[10]Herodotus described Thales as "aPhoenician by remote descent".[11] Diogenes Laërtius references Herodotus,Duris, andDemocritus, who all agree "that Thales was the son of Examyas and Cleobulina, and belonged to the Thelidae who are Phoenicians and amongst the noblest descendants ofCadmus andAgenor" who had been banished from Phoenicia and that Thales was enrolled as a citizen in Miletus along withNeleus.[12][13]
However,Friedrich Nietzsche and others interpret this quote as meaning only that his ancestors wereseafaringCadmeians fromBoeotia.[14][15] It is also possible that he was of mixed ancestry, given his father had aCarian name and his mother had a Greek name.[15][16][17] Diogenes Laërtius seems to also reference an alternative account: "Most writers, however, represent him as a genuine Milesian and of a distinguished family".[18]Encyclopedia Britannica (1952) concluded that Thales was most likely a native Milesian of noble birth and that he was certainly a Greek.[16]
Diogenes continues, by delivering more conflicting reports: one that Thales married and either fathered a son (Cybisthus or Cybisthon) or adopted his nephew of the same name; the second that he never married, telling his mother as a young man that it was too early to marry, and as an older man that it was too late.[b]Plutarch had earlier told this version:Solon visited Thales and asked him why he remained single; Thales answered that he did not like the idea of having to worry about children. Nevertheless, several years later, anxious for family, he adopted his nephew Cybisthus.[20]
Travels
The culture ofArchaic Greece was heavily influenced by those of theLevant andMesopotamia.[21] It is said Thales was engaged in trade and visited eitherEgypt orBabylonia.[22] However, there is no strong evidence that Thales ever visited countries in theNear East, and the issue is disputed among scholars.[23] Visits to such places were a commonplace attribution to various philosophers by later writers, especially when these writers tried to explain the origin of their mathematical knowledge, such as with Thales orPythagoras orEudoxus.[24][2]
Egypt
Thales may have been educated in Egypt.
Several ancient authors assume that Thales, at one point in his life, visitedEgypt, where he learned about geometry.[25] It is considered possible that Thales visited Egypt, since Miletus had a permanent colony there (namelyNaucratis). It is also said Thales had close contacts with the priests ofThebes who instructed him, or even that he instructedthem in geometry.[26][27] It is also possible Thales knew about Egypt from accounts of others, without actually visiting it.[28]
Babylon
Aside from Egypt, the other mathematically advanced, ancient civilization before the Greeks was Babylonia, another commonplace attribution of travel for a mathematically-minded philosopher.[29]
Historians Roger L. Cooke andB.L. Van der Waerden come down on the side of Babylonian mathematics influencing the Greeks, citing the use of e. g. thesexagesimal system (orbase 60).[29] Cooke notes "This relation, however, is controversial."[29] Other historians, such as D. R. Dicks, take issue with the idea of Babylonian influence on Greek mathematics. For until around the time ofHipparchus (c. 190–120 BC) their sexagesimal system was unknown.[30]
Herodotus wrote the Greeks learnt thegnomon from the Babylonians. Thales's follower Anaximander is credited with introducing thegnomon to the Greeks.[31] Herodotus also wrote that the practice of dividing the day into 12 parts, and thepolos, came to the Greeks from the Babylonians.[c] Yet this too is disputed, for example by historian L. Zhmud, who points out thegnomon was known to both Egyptians and Babylonians, the division of the day into twelve parts (and by analogy the year) was known to the Egyptians already in the2nd millennium BC, and the idea of thepolos was not used outside of Greece at this time.[33]
Thales is recognized as one of the Seven Sages of Greece, semi-legendary wisestatesmen and founding figures of Ancient Greece. While which seven one chooses may change, the seven has a canonical four which includes Thales, Solon of Athens,Pittacus of Mytilene, andBias of Priene. Diogenes Laërtius tells us that the Seven Sages were created in thearchonship of Damasius atAthens about 582 BC and that Thales was the first sage.[34][d]
The sages were associated with theDelphic maxims, a quote or maxim attributed to each one inscribed on theTemple of Apollo atDelphi. Thales has arguably the most famous of all,gnothi seauton orknow thyself. According to the 10th-century Byzantine encyclopedia theSuda, the proverb is both "applied to those whose boasts exceed what they are" and "a warning to pay no attention to the opinion of the multitude."[35][e]
Golden tripod
Diogenes Laërtius relates several stories of an expensive, gold tripod or bowl that is to go to the mostwise. In one version (that Laërtius credits toCallimachus in hisIambics) Bathycles of Arcadia states in his will that an expensive bowl"'should be given to him who had done most good by his wisdom.' So it was given to Thales, went the round of all the sages, and came back to Thales again. And he sent it toApollo at Didyma, with this dedication...'Thales the Milesian, son of Examyas [dedicates this] to Delphinian Apollo after twice winning the prize from all the Greeks.'"[41]
Diplomacy
According to Diogenes Laërtius, Thales gained fame as a counselor when he advised the Milesians not to engage in a symmachia, a "fighting together", with the Lydians. This has sometimes been interpreted as an alliance.[42]
Croesus was defeated before the city ofSardis byCyrus the Great, who subsequently spared Miletus because it had taken no action. Cyrus was so impressed by Croesus’ wisdom and his connection with the sages that he spared him and took his advice on various matters.[citation needed] The Ionian cities should be demoi, or "districts".
He counselled them to establish a single seat of government, and pointed outTeos as the fittest place for it; "for that," he said, "was the centre ofIonia. Their other cities might still continue to enjoy their own laws, just as if they were independent states."[43]
Miletus, however, received favorable terms from Cyrus. The others remained in an Ionian League of twelve cities (excluding Miletus), and were subjugated by the Persians.[citation needed]
Theories and studies
Early Greeks, and other civilizations before them, often invokedidiosyncratic explanations of natural phenomena with reference to the will ofanthropomorphicgods andheroes. Instead, Thales aimed to explain natural phenomena via rational hypotheses that referenced natural processes themselves—[44]Logos rather thanmythos.
Aristotle advocated the view that Thales was the first natural philosopher (physiologoi),[45][46] although this position was typically not adopted among other writers, even those within Aristotle'sPeripatetic school, until the view became more prominent among eighteenth-century historians.[1] Also, while the other Seven Sages were strictly law-givers and statesmen and not speculative philosophers, Plutarch noted "it would seem that Thales was the only wise man of the time who carried his speculations beyond the realm of the practical."[47]
Thales's most famous idea was his philosophical andcosmological thesis that all is water, which comes down to us through a passage fromAristotle'sMetaphysics.[45] In the work, Aristotle reported Thales's theory that thearche or originating principle of nature wasa single material substance: water. Aristotle then proceeded to proffer a number of conjectures based on his own observations to lend some credence to why Thales may have advanced this idea (though Aristotle did not hold it himself).
While Aristotle's conjecture on why Thales held water as the originating principle of matter is his own thinking, his statement that Thales held it as water is generally accepted as genuinely originating with Thales. Writing centuries later, Diogenes Laërtius also states that Thales taught "Water constituted (ὑπεστήσατο, 'stood under') the principle of all things."[48][f]
That from which is everything that exists and from which it first becomes and into which it is rendered at last, its substance remaining under it, but transforming in qualities, that they say is the element and principle of things that are. …For it is necessary that there be some nature (φύσις), either one or more than one, from which become the other things of the object being saved... [The first philosophers] do not all agree as to the number and the nature of these principles. Thales the founder of this type of philosophy says that it is water.
Aristotle further adds:
Presumably he derived this assumption from seeing that the nutriment of everything is moist, and that heat itself is generated from moisture and depends upon it for its existence (and that from which a thing is generated is always its first principle). He derived his assumption from this; and also from the fact that the seeds of everything have a moist nature, whereas water is the first principle of the nature of moist things."[50][g]
In his dogma that water is the origin of things, that is, that it is that out of which every thing arises, and into which every thing resolves itself, Thales may have followedOrphic cosmogonies, while, unlike them, he sought to establish the truth of the assertion. Hence, Aristotle, immediately after he has called him the originator of philosophy brings forward the reasons which Thales was believed to have adduced in confirmation of that assertion; for that no written development of it, or indeed any book by Thales, was extant, is proved by the expressions which Aristotle uses when he brings forward the doctrines and proofs of the Milesian. (p. 1016)
Most agree that Thales's stamp on thought is the unity of substance. Not merely the empirical claim that all is water, but the deeper philosophical claim that all is one. For example,Friedrich Nietzsche, in hisPhilosophy in the Tragic Age of the Greeks, wrote:[51]
Greek philosophy seems to begin with an absurd notion, with the proposition thatwater is the primal origin and the womb of all things. Is it really necessary for us to take serious notice of this proposition? It is, and for three reasons. First, because it tells us something about the primal origin of all things; second, because it does so in language devoid of image or fable, and finally, because contained in it, if only embryonically, is the thought, "all things are one."
Mathematics
Megiston topos: apanta gar chorei (Μέγιστον τόπος· ἄπαντα γὰρ χωρεῖ.)
Thales was known for introducing the theoretical and practical use ofgeometry to Greece, and has been described as the first person in the Western world to apply deductive reasoning to geometry, making him the West's "first mathematician".[9][53][54] He is also credited with the West's oldest definition ofnumber: a "collection of units", "following the Egyptian view".[55][56]
The evidence for the primacy of Thales comes to us from a book byProclus, who lived a thousand years afterward but is believed to have had a copy ofEudemus's lost bookHistory of Geometry (4th century BC).[h] Proclus wrote that Thales was the first to visit Egypt and bring the Egyptian study of mathematics to Greece, and that Thales "himself discovered many propositions and disclosed the underlying principles of many others to his successors, in some case his method being more general, in others more empirical."[54] In addition to Proclus,Hieronymus of Rhodes (3rd century BC) also cites Thales as the first Greek mathematician.
Modern scholars are skeptical that anyone in Thales's time was producing mathematical proofs to the standard of later Greek mathematics, though not enough direct evidence remains to draw firm conclusions. While Thales may have discovered some basic geometric relations and provided some justification for them, attribution to him of formal proofs is now thought to represent speculative rationalization and reconstruction by later authors, rather than concrete accomplishments of Thales himself or his contemporaries.[58]
Vertical angles
According to one author, while visiting Egypt,[25] Thales observed that when the Egyptians drew two intersecting lines, they would measure the vertical angles to make sure that they were equal.[59] Thales concluded that one could prove that all vertical angles are equal if one accepted some general notions such as: all straight angles are equal, equals added to equals are equal, and equals subtracted from equals are equal.
Thales's theorem: ifAC is a diameter andB is a point on the diameter's circle, the angle∠ABC is a right angle.
Pamphila says that, having learnt geometry from the Egyptians, Thales was the first to inscribe in a circle a right-angled triangle, whereupon hesacrificed an ox.[54] This is sometimes cited as history's first mathematical discovery.[60] Due to the variations among testimonies, such as the story of the ox sacrifice being accredited to Pythagoras upon discovery of thePythagorean theorem rather than Thales, some historians (such as D. R. Dicks) question whether such anecdotes have any historical worth whatsoever.[30]
It is believed the Babylonians knew the theorem for special cases.[61][62]The theorem is mentioned and proved as part of the 31st proposition in the third book ofEuclid'sElements.[63] Dante'sParadiso refers to Thales's theorem in the course of a speech.[64]
The story is told inDiogenes Laërtius,Pliny the Elder, andPlutarch,[54][65] sourced fromHieronymus of Rhodes, that when Thales visitedEgypt,[25] he measured the height of thepyramids by their shadows at the moment when his own shadow was equal to his height.[i] According to Plutarch, it pleased the pharoahAmasis. More practically, Thales was said to have the ability to measure the distances of ships at sea.
These stories indicate familiarity with the intercept theorem, and for this reason the 26th proposition in the first book of Euclid's Elements was attributed to Thales.[67] They also indicate that he was familiar with the Egyptianseked, orseqed, the ratio of the run to the rise of aslope (cotangent).[68][j] According to Kirk & Raven,[10] all you need for this feat is three straight sticks pinned at one end and knowledge of your altitude. One stick goes vertically into the ground. A second is made level. With the third you sight the ship and calculate theseked from the height of the stick and its distance from the point of insertion to the line of sight.[69]
Astronomy
Urania, the Muse of Astronomy, Reveals to Thales the Secrets of the Skies
Thales was also a noted astronomer, acknowledged in antiquity for describing the position ofUrsa Minor, and he thought the constellation might be useful as a guide for navigation at sea. He calculated the duration of the year and the timings of theequinoxes andsolstices. He is additionally attributed with calculating the position of thePleiades.[10]
Plutarch indicates that in his day (c. AD 100) there was an extant work, theAstronomy, composed in verse and attributed to Thales.[70] While some say he left no writings, others say that he wroteOn the Solstice andOn the Equinox. TheNautical Star-guide has also been attributed to him, but this was disputed even in ancient times.[10][k] No writing attributed to him has survived. Lobon of Argus asserted that the writings of Thales amounted to two hundred lines.[71]
Cosmological model
Worldview of Thales (left) and pupil Anaximander (right).
Thales thought theEarth must be a flat disk or mound of land and dirt which is floating in an expanse of water.[72]Heraclitus Homericus states that Thales drew his conclusion from seeing moist substance turn into air, slime and earth. It seems likely that Thales viewed the land as coming from the water on which it floated and the oceans that surround it, perhaps inspired by observingsilt deposits.[73]
He thought the stars were balls of dirt on fire.[74] He seemed to correctly gather that the moon reflects the Sun's light.[75] Acrater on the Moon is named in his honor.
Meteorology
Rather than assuming thatearthquakes were the result of supernatural whims, Thales explained them by theorizing that the Earth floats on water and that earthquakes occur when the Earth is rocked by waves.[76][44] He is attributed with the first observation of theHyades, supposed by the ancients to indicate the approach of rain when they rose with the Sun.[77] According toSeneca, Thales explained the flooding of theNile as due to the river being beaten back by theetesian wind.[78]
Olive presses
An olive mill and an olive press dating from Roman times inCapernaum, Israel.
A story, with different versions, recounts how Thales achieved riches from an olive harvest byprediction of the weather. In one version, he bought all theolive presses in Miletus after predicting the weather and a good harvest for a particular year. Another version of the story has Aristotle explain that Thales had reserved presses in advance, at a discount, and could rent them out at a high price when demand peaked, following hisprediction of a particularly good harvest. This first version of the story would constitute the first historically known creation and use offutures, whereas the second version would be the first historically known creation and use ofoptions.[79]
Aristotle explains that Thales's objective in doing this was not to enrich himself but to prove to his fellow Milesians that philosophy could be useful, contrary to what they thought,[80] or alternatively, Thales had made his foray into enterprise because of a personal challenge put to him by an individual who had asked why, if Thales was an intelligent famous philosopher, he had yet to attain wealth.
As mentioned above, according to Herodotus, Thales predicted a solar eclipsewhich occurred during a battle between theLydians and theMedes.[7] Among eclipses of the era, only the eclipse of 28 May 585 BC reached totality inAnatolia where the war took place. American writerIsaac Asimov described this battle as the earliest historical event whose date is known with precision to the day, and called the prediction "the birth of science".[81][82]
Herodotus writes that in the sixth year of the war, the Lydians under KingAlyattes and the Medes underCyaxares were engaged in an indecisive battle when suddenly day turned into night, leading to both parties halting the fighting and negotiating a peace agreement. Herodotus also mentions that the loss of daylight had been predicted by Thales. He does not, however, mention the location of the battle.[83]
Afterwards, on the refusal of Alyattes to give up his suppliants when Cyaxares sent to demand them of him, war broke out between the Lydians and the Medes, and continued for five years, with various success. In the course of it the Medes gained many victories over the Lydians, and the Lydians also gained many victories over the Medes. Among their other battles there was one night engagement. As, however, the balance had not inclined in favour of either nation, another combat took place in the sixth year, in the course of which, just as the battle was growing warm, day was on a sudden changed into night. This event had been foretold by Thales, the Milesian, who forewarned the Ionians of it, fixing for it the very year in which it actually took place. The Medes and Lydians, when they observed the change, ceased fighting, and were alike anxious to have terms of peace agreed on.[43]
However, based on the list ofMedian kings and the duration of their reign reported elsewhere by Herodotus, Cyaxares died 10 years before the eclipse.[84][85]
D. R. Dicks joins other historians (F. Martini, J. L. E. Dreyer,O. Neugebauer) in rejecting the historicity of the eclipse story.[30] Dicks links the story of Thales discovering the cause for a solar eclipse with Herodotus' claim that Thales discovered the cycle of the sun with relation to the solstices, and concludes "he could not possibly have possessed this knowledge which neither the Egyptians nor the Babylonians nor his immediate successors possessed."[30]
Plato, Diogenes Laertius, and Hippolytus all relay the story that Thales was so intent upon watching the stars that he failed to watch where he was walking, and fell into a well.[86][87][l]
"Thales was studying the stars and gazing into the sky, when he fell into a well, and a jolly and witty Thracian servant girl made fun of him, saying that he was crazy to know about what was up in the heavens while he could not see what was in front of him beneath his feet."[89]
Engineering
The Halys River
In addition to astronomy, Thales involved himself in other practical applications of mathematics, includingengineering.[90] Another story by Herodotus is thatCroesus sent his army to the Persian territory. He was stopped by the riverHalys, then unbridged. Thales then got the army across the river by digging a diversion upstream so as to reduce the flow, making it possible to cross the river.[91] While Herodotus reported that most of his fellow Greeks believe that Thales did divert the river Halys to assist King Croesus' military endeavors, he himself finds it doubtful.[30] Plato praises Thales along withAnacharsis, who is credited as the originator of the potter's wheel and the anchor.[92]
Divinity
Thales (Electricity), a sculpture from "The Progress of Railroading" (1908), located at the main façade ofWashington Union Station
According to Aristotle, Thales thought "all things are full of gods",[10][93] i. e.lodestones hadsouls, because iron is attracted to them (by the force ofmagnetism).[94] The same applied toamber for its capacity to generatestatic electricity. The reasoning for suchhylozoism ororganicism seems to be if something moved, then it was alive, and if it was alive, then it must have a soul.[95][96]
As well as gods seen in the movement caused by what came to be known asmagnetism and electricity, it seems Thales also had a supreme God which structured the universe:
"Thales", saysCicero,[97] "assures thatwater is the principle of all things; and that God is that Mind which shaped and created all things from water."
According toHenry Fielding (1775),Diogenes Laërtius (1.35) affirmed that Thales posed "the independent pre-existence of God from all eternity, stating "that God was the oldest of all beings, for he existed without a previous cause even in the way of generation; that the world was the most beautiful of all things; for it was created by God."[98]
Nicholas Molinari has recently argued that Thales was influenced by the archaic water deityAcheloios, who was equated with water and worshipped in Miletus during Thales's life. For evidence, he points to the fact thathydor meant specifically "fresh water", and also that Acheloios was seen as a shape-shifter in myth and art, so able to become anything. He also points out that the rivers of the world were seen as the "sinews of Acheloios" in antiquity, and this multiplicity of deities is reflected in Thales's idea that "all things are full of gods."[99]
Death and legacy
Diogenes Laërtius quotes Apollodorus as saying that Thales died at the age of 78 during the 58thOlympiad (548–545 BC) and attributes his death toheat stroke and thirst while watching the games.[100]
Influence
Detail of Thales fromThe Beginnings of Science (1906) byVeloso Salgado
Thales had a profound influence on other Greek thinkers and therefore onWestern history. However, due to the scarcity of sources concerning Thales and the discrepancies between the accounts given in the sources that have survived, there is a scholarly debate over the extent of the influence Thales had and on which of the Greek philosophers and mathematicians that came after him.[m]
The first three philosophers in the Western tradition were allcosmologists from Miletus, and Thales was the very first, followed byAnaximander, who was followed in turn byAnaximenes. They have been dubbed theMilesian school. According to theSuda, Thales had been the "teacher and kinsman" of Anaximander.[102] Rather than water, Anaximander held all was made ofapeiron or the unlimited; while Anaximenes, the successor of Anaximander, perhaps more like Thales with water, held that everything was composed ofair.[103]
Lastly, we have one admitted instance of a philosophic guild, that of thePythagoreans. And it will be found that the hypothesis, if it is to be called by that name, of a regular organisation of scientific activity will alone explain all the facts. The development of doctrine in the hands of Thales,Anaximander, andAnaximenes, for instance, can only be understood as the elaboration of a single idea in a school with a continuous tradition.
As two of the first Greek mathematicians, Thales is also considered an influence on Pythagoras. According to Iamblichus, Pythagoras "had benefited by the instruction of Thales in many respects, but his greatest lesson had been to learn the value of saving time."[105] Early sources[which?] report that Pythagoras, in this story a pupil of Anaximander, visited Thales as a young man, and that Thales advised him to travel to Egypt to further his philosophical and mathematical studies.
Thales was also considered the teacher of the astronomer Mandrolytus of Priene.[106] It is possible he was also the teacher ofCleostratus of Tenedos.[107]
Notes
^This use of hearsay and a lack of citing original sources leads some historians, like Dicks and Werner Jaeger, to view the whole idea of pre-Socratic philosophy as a construct from a later age, "fashioned during the two or three generations from Plato to the immediate pupils of Aristotle".[6]
^In addition, his supposed mother, Cleobulina, has also been described as his companion instead of his mother.[19]
^The exact meaning of this use of the wordpolos is unknown, current theories include: "the heavenly dome", "the tip of the axis of the celestial sphere", or a spherical concave sundial.[32]
^The same story, however, asserts that Thales emigrated to Miletus; and that he did not become a student of nature until after his political career. This story has to be rejected if one is to believe that Thales was a native of Miletus, and other typical things about him like his prediction of the eclipse.
^The aphorism has also been attributed to various other philosophers.Diogenes Laërtius attributes it to Thales[36][37] but notes that Antisthenes in hisSuccessions of Philosophers attributes it instead toPhemonoe, a mythical Greek poet. The Roman poetJuvenal quotes the phrase in Greek and states that the precept descendede caelo (from heaven).[38] Other names of potential includePythagoras[39] andHeraclitus.[40]
^Historian Abraham Feldman wrote that for Thales "...water united all things...all whatness is wetness".[49]
^Feldman notes "The social significance of water in the time of Thales induced him to discern through hardware and dry-goods, through soil and sperm, blood, sweat and tears, one fundamental fluid stuff...water, the most commonplace and powerful material known to him."[49]
^While some historians, such as Colin R. Fletcher, note there could have been a precursor to Thales named by Eudemus, without the work "the question becomes mere speculation."[54] Fletcher grants there is no other viable contender to the title of first Greek mathematician, and that Thales qualifies as a practitioner in the field. "Thales had at his command the techniques of observation, experimentation, superposition and deduction... he has proved himself mathematician."[54]
^A right triangle with two equal legs is a 45-degree right triangle, all of which are similar. The length of the pyramid's shadow measured from the center of the pyramid at that moment must have been equal to its height.[66]
^Theseked is at the base of problems 56, 57, 58, 59 and 60 of theRhind papyrus — an ancient Egyptian mathematical document.
^According to Diogenes Laertius, the Nautical Astronomy attributed to Thales was written byPhocus of Samos.
^The Scottish philosopherAdam Smith once similarly, absent-mindedly fell into atannery pit.[88]
^Edmund Husserl[101] attempts to capture the new movement as follows. Philosophical man is a "new cultural configuration" based in stepping back from "pregiven tradition" and taking up a rational "inquiry into what is true in itself;" that is, an ideal of truth.
^Dunham, William.Journey Through Genius: The Great Theorems of Mathematics. p. 6.
^Translation of his biography on Thales:ThalesArchived 9 February 2008 at theWayback Machine, classicpersuasion site; original Greek text, underΘΑΛΗΣ, the Library of Ancient Texts Online site.
^abAlexander Herda. Burying a sage: the heroon of Thales in the agora of Miletos: With remarks on some other excavated Heroa and on cults and graves of the mythical founders of the city. 2èmes Rencontres d'archéologie de l'IFEA : Le Mort dans la ville Pratiques, contextes et impacts des inhumations intra-muros en Anatolie, du début de l'Age du Bronze à l'époque romaine., Nov 2011, Istanbul, Turkey. pp. 67–122
^Plant, I. M. (2004).Women Writers of Ancient Greece and Rome: An Anthology. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press. pp. 29–32.
^Plutarch (1952). "Solon". In Robert Maynard Hutchins (ed.).Lives. Great Books of the Western World. Vol. 14. Chicago: William Benton. p. 66.
^Riedweg, Christoph (2005) [2002],Pythagoras: His Life, Teachings, and Influence, Ithaca, New York: Cornell University Press,ISBN978-0-8014-7452-1 p. 7
^abBulmer-Thomas, Ivor (1939)."Thales".Selections Illustrating the History of Greek Mathematics. Vol. 1. Harvard University Press. pp. 164–169.
^Sidoli, Nathan (2018)."Greek mathematics"(PDF). In Jones, A.; Taub, L. (eds.).The Cambridge History of Science: Vol. 1, Ancient Science. Cambridge University Press. pp. 345–373.
^Krech III, Shepard; Merchant, Carolyn; McNeill, John Robert, eds. (2003). "Earthquakes".Encyclopedia of World Environmental History. Vol. 1: A–G. Routledge. pp. 358–364.
^History of Meteorology to 1800 by H. Howard Frisinger p. 3
^Nicholas J. Molinari, Acheloios, Thales, and the Origin of Philosophy: A Response to the Neo-Marxians. Oxford: Archaeopress, 2022https://www.archaeopress.com/Archaeopress/Products/9781803270869; cf. also Nicholas J. Molinari, Concerning Water as the Archai: Acheloios, Thales, and the Origin of Philosophy. A Dissertation Providing Philosophical, Mythological, and Archaeological Responses to the Neo-Marxians, Doctoral Dissertation, Newport, RI: Salve Regina University, 2020https://philpapers.org/rec/MOLCWA-2
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Molinari, Nicholas J. (2022).Acheloios, Thales, and the Origin of Philosophy: A Response to the Neo-Marxians. Archaeopress.ISBN9781803270869.
Russell, Bertrand (1947).A History of Western Philosophy. Traditio Praesocratica. US: Simon & Schuster publisher.ISBN0-415-32505-6.{{cite book}}:ISBN / Date incompatibility (help)
Wöhrle, Georg., ed. (2014).The Milesians: Thales. Translation and additional material by Richard McKirahan. Traditio Praesocratica. Vol. 1. Walter de Gruyter.ISBN978-3-11-031525-7.
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